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WORK-IN-PROGRESS (JANUARY 25, 2020) PARALLEL CHART FOR

Paper 85 — The Origins of Worship

© 2011, 2015, 2020 Matthew Block

This chart is a revision of the December 29, 2011 and January 28, 2015 versions.Most endnotes and Urantia Book cross-references have been deleted to enhance readability.

Sources for Paper 85, in the order in which they first appear

(1) E. Washburn Hopkins, Ph.D., LL.D., Origin and Evolution of Religion (New Haven: YaleUniversity Press, 1923)

(2) William Graham Sumner and Albert Galloway Keller, The Science of Society, Volume II (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927)

(3) William Graham Sumner, Albert Galloway Keller, and Maurice Rea Davie, The Scienceof Society, Volume IV (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1927)

(4) Ernest William Barnes, Scientific Theory and Religion: The World described by Scienceand its Spiritual interpretation (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1933)

Key

(a) Green indicates where a source author first appears, or where he/she reappears.

(b) Yellow highlights most parallelisms.

(c) Tan highlights parallelisms not occurring on the same row.

(d) An underlined word or words indicates where the source and the UB writer pointedlydiffer from each other.

(e) Blue indicates original (or “revealed”) information, or UB-specific terminology andconcepts. (What to highlight in this regard is debatable; the highlights are tentative.)

(f) Light green indicates Bible passages or fragments thereof, which are not paralleled in thesource text.

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SOURCE OR PARALLEL URANTIA PAPER 85

Work-in-progress Version 27 jan. 2011© 2011, 2015, 2020 Matthew BlockRevised 28 Jan. 2015 and 25 Jan. 2020

PAPER 85 — THEORIGINS OF WORSHIP

85:0.1 Primitive religion had a biologicorigin, a natural evolutionary develop-ment, aside from moral associations andapart from all spiritual influences. Thehigher animals have fears but noillusions, hence no religion.1 Man createshis primitive religions out of his fears andby means of his illusions.

85:0.2 In the evolution of the humanspecies, worship in its primitivemanifestations appears long before themind of man is capable of formulating themore complex concepts of life now and inthe hereafter which deserve to be calledreligion. Early religion was whollyintellectual in nature and was entirelypredicated on associational circum-stances. The objects of worship werealtogether suggestive; they consisted ofthe things of nature which were close athand, or which loomed large in thecommonplace experience of the simple-minded primitive Urantians.

I: INTRODUCTION (Hopkins 1)

85:0.3 When religion once evolvedbeyond nature worship, it acquired rootsof spirit origin but was nevertheless

[contd] Every religion is a product ofhuman evolution and has been con-ditioned by social environment (H 1).

always conditioned by the socialenvironment.

As nature worship developed, man’sconcepts envisioned a division of labor inthe supermortal world; there were naturespirits for lakes, trees, waterfalls, rain,and hundreds of other ordinary terrestrialphenomena.

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II: THE WORSHIP OF STONES, HILLS,TREES, AND PLANTS (Hopkins 13)

85:0.4 At one time or another

[contd] Man has worshipped every-thing on earth, including himself, stones,hills, flowers, trees, streams, wells, ocean,and animals.

mortal man has worshiped everything onthe face of the earth, including himself.

He has worshipped everything he couldthink of beneath the earth, metals, caves,serpents, and under-world ghosts. Finally,he has worshipped everything betweenearth and heaven and everything in theheavens above, mist, wind, cloud, rain-bow, stars, moon, sun, the sky itself,though only in part has he worshipped thespirits of all these objects.

He has also worshiped about everythingimaginable in the sky and beneath thesurface of the earth.

Yet with all this bewildering jumble tohis discredit, man to his credit has neverreally worshipped anything save what heimagined behind these phenomena, thething he sought and feared, power (H 13). Primitive man feared all manifestations of

power;

he worshiped every natural phenomenonhe could not comprehend. The obser-vation of powerful natural forces, such asstorms, floods, earthquakes, landslides,volcanoes, fire, heat, and cold, greatlyimpressed the expanding mind of man.

XXII: THE SPIRIT-ENVIRONMENT(Sumner & Keller 771)

§201. Ghost-Fear. (Sumner & Keller 771)

[I]nexplicable or unforeseeable calamitiesare still generalized as “acts of God” or“acts of Providence.” What men canunderstand and provide against they donot so designate (S&K 771).

The inexplicable things of life are stilltermed “acts of God” and “mysteriousdispensations of Providence.”2

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1. WORSHIP OF STONES ANDHILLS


[See footnote for Hopkins’s contrasting view.] 85:1.1 The first object to be worshipedby evolving man was a stone.3

At the present day the inhabitants ofKateri in South India worship a stone,which if neglected will turn into a wildox,

Today the Kateri people of southern Indiastill worship a stone,

and in Northern India not only the wildtribes but recognized castes of civilizedsociety worship stones which they believeto be alive and possessed of volition (H14).

as do numerous tribes in northern India.

Among the Semites, the Canaanitesespecially, and, among the Aryans, theKelts worshipped and anointed stones.Similarly, Jacob after using a stone as apillow anointed it

Jacob slept on a stone because hevenerated it; he even anointed it.

and Rachel concealed stones in the tent,probably “witness stones” (Gen. 28:11-22; 31:34) (H 14-15).

Rachel concealed a number of sacredstones in her tent.

85:1.2 Stones first impressed early manas being out of the ordinary because ofthe manner in which

If one ask a Yankee farmer why hisfields every year have a fresh crop ofstones (they do indeed annually come tothe surface), he will say that they climbup from below and he almost believesthat they work up of their own volition (H14).

they would so suddenly appear on thesurface of a cultivated field or pasture.

Men failed to take into account eithererosion or the results of the overturningof soil.

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[Stones that look like deformed animals are alsoholy (Sumner & Keller 988).]

Stones also greatly impressed earlypeoples because of their frequentresemblance to animals.

The attention of civilized man is arrestedby

A stone may be half human and yetdivine enough to excite religious awe andveneration. Of this sort are first the stoneslike those of the Profile Rock in theWhite Mountains.

numerous stone formations in themountains

No Indian could see this apparent face ofrock without imagining it the face of amore than human yet manlike being (H17).

which so much resemble the faces ofanimals and even men.

But the most profound influence wasexerted by

Different in origin are the betyls orheavenly stones, whose divinity derivedfrom their origin.

meteoric stones

which primitive humans beheld hurtlingthrough the atmosphere in flaminggrandeur.

[See 88:1.1.] The shooting star was awesome to earlyman, and he easily believed that suchblazing streaks marked the passage of aspirit on its way to earth.

No wonder men were led to worship suchphenomena,

A blazing stone striking the earth wouldalways inspire fear and subsequentreligious regard or worship, as in the caseof many known betyls (probably theKaaba stone at Mecca is of this sort) (H15).

especially when they subsequentlydiscovered the meteors.

And this led to greater reverence for allother stones.

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At this hour is worshipped in Bengal astone which fell in 1880; it is at present“the miraculous god” (H 16).

In Bengal many worship a meteor whichfell to earth in A.D. 1880.

[See H 14.] 85:1.3 All ancient clans and tribes hadtheir sacred stones,

[See S&K IV 456.] and most modern peoples manifest adegree of veneration for certain types ofstones—their jewels.

A group of five stones in India A group of five stones was reverenced inIndia;

(thirty in Greece) is sometimes found asa religious unit similar to the stone circlesof Europe

in Greece it was a cluster of thirty;

and to the groups of stones set by theAmerinds, though not always numberedor placed precisely in a circle (H 16).

among the red men it was usually a circleof stones.

The ceremony of throwing a stoneamong the Romans involved the invo-cation of Jupiter and it has thence beensupposed that Jupiter himself wasoriginally a stone, as for other reasonsscholars have interpreted Jupiter as anoak (H 17).

The Romans always threw a stone intothe air when invoking Jupiter.

Here may be mentioned the commonpractice in India of taking up a stone as awitness.

In India even to this day a stone can beused as a witness.

If one wishes to hale an offender to courtone seizes a stone and calls it an officer. In some regions a stone may be employed

as a talisman of the law, and by itsprestige an offender can be haled intocourt.

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But simple mortals do not always

[contd from four rows up] But nothing is morefallacious than to identify a deity with anobject of ceremony (H 17).

identify Deity with an object of reverentceremony.

The stone mounted in the Hindu marriageceremony was originally a millstone andseems to be merely a symbol of constancyand endurance, though modern practiceidentifies the stone with the wife of Shivaor with the divine protector of the fieldand family (H 17).

Such fetishes are many times meresymbols of the real object of worship.

85:1.4 The ancients had a peculiarregard for holes in stones.

A millstone is magically efficacious notbecause of the stone but because of thehole in it.

Such porous rocks were supposed to beunusually efficacious

In the Rig-Veda we read that a god cureda girl by drawing her through the hole inthe middle of his chariot-wheel (H 18).

in curing diseases.

Noses and ears were not perforated atfirst to carry rings, but the rings werecarried to keep open the hole.

Ears were not perforated to carry stones,but the stones were put in to keep the earholes open.

Coins with a hole in them are pro-phylactic like jewels (H 18).

Even in modern times superstitiouspersons make holes in coins.

The African fetish-stone also in itsoriginal form is not a material thingcontaining a spirit but an animate beingand is treated as such, being cajoled orbeaten to be helpful ... (H 18-19).

In Africa the natives make much ado overtheir fetish stones.

In fact, among all backward tribes andpeoples stones are still held in super-stitious veneration. Stone worship is evennow widespread over the world.

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[[T]ombstones become sacred through associationwith the dead, though tombs were reallyworshipped, as in the case of Norwegian cairns.Carved images, idols, are later than natural idolsbut are worshipped as readily ... (H 20-21).]

The tombstone is a surviving symbol ofimages and idols which were carved instone in connection with beliefs in ghostsand the spirits of departed fellow beings.

The lone stone to the villager is aguardian god. And what the rock is to thevillager the hill is to the larger community(H 19).

85:1.5 Hill worship

followed stone worship, and the first hillsto be venerated were large stoneformations.

It presently became the custom to believethat

Hills as abodes of heavenly gods are ofcourse doubly holy and when, as in thecase of the Himalayas, they merge withthe sky, they are regarded not as parts ofearth but of heaven (H 19).

the gods inhabited the mountains, so thathigh elevations of land were worshipedfor this additional reason.

As time passed, certain mountains wereassociated with certain gods and thereforebecame holy.

[The savage] reveres rather the hills andchasms (leading to the underworld)

The ignorant and superstitious aboriginesbelieved that caves led to the underworld,

as homes of ghosts and spirits (H 20). with its evil spirits and demons,

in contrast with the mountains, whichwere identified with the later evolvingconcepts of good spirits and deities.

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2. WORSHIP OF PLANTS ANDTREES

Plants or grains yielding an intoxicanthave generally been deified, as in India,Persia, and Mexico (H 27).

85:2.1 Plants were first feared and thenworshiped because of the intoxicatingliquors which were derived therefrom.

To drink the deified liquor is to becomedivine; one absorbs divinity much in thesame way as a totem-worshipper renewspower (H 28).

Primitive man believed that intoxicationrendered one divine.

There was supposed to be somethingunusual and sacred about such anexperience.

XXIX: FETISHISM: TOTEMISM(Sumner & Keller 1017)

§256.* The Animal-Fetish. (Sumner & Keller1026)

To the savage, things which produceextraordinary effects must have a spirit inthem. Are not certain alcoholic drinksstill called “spirits”? (S&K 1027)

Even in modern times alcohol is knownas “spirits.”


85:2.2 Early man looked uponsprouting grain with dread andsuperstitious awe.

To our religious sense the idea ofresurrection is associated with St. Paul’sappeal to the analogous resurrection ofgrain. All around the Mediterranean andfar north in Central Europe thisresurrection of plant life had been madethe centre of religious ritual long beforePaul’s day (H 30). The Apostle Paul was not the first to

draw profound spiritual lessons from, andpredicate religious beliefs on, thesprouting grain.

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The cult of trees is one of the oldest,as it is one of the most widely extendedforms of worship (H 22).

85:2.3 The cults of tree worship areamong the oldest religious groups.

[Compare: In India, tree-marriages arecommon. The wife who otherwise would get theevil result of a third marriage on the part of herhusband thus casts the evil on the tree substitute,she herself becoming the fourth wife (H 23).]

All early marriages were held under thetrees,

Thus, in the Hindu epic, a woman whowants children embraces a tree (H 23).

and when women desired children, theywould sometimes be found out in theforest affectionately embracing a sturdyoak.

Probably the veneration of many treesand plants arises from their medicinal(magical) power, as is the case with thetulsi plant sacred to Vishnu (H 24).

Many plants and trees were veneratedbecause of their real or fancied medicinalpowers.

The savage believed that all chemicaleffects were due to the direct activity ofsupernatural forces.

85:2.4 Ideas about tree spirits variedgreatly among different tribes and races.

Whether wood-spirits are kind or notdepends on circumstances.

Some trees were indwelt by kindly spirits;others harbored the deceptive and cruel.

The Finns regard them as gentle; they callthe forest-spirit “gentle god of the wood”and give him the “honey goddess” aswife.

The Finns believed that most trees wereoccupied by kind spirits.

The Amerinds’ spirit was ferocious likethemselves, a cruel demon, and theRussian forest deity was brutal andmisleading, though this type appears alsoin Sweden and Japan, while inSwitzerland the wood-spirits are trickyrather than cruel, stealing milk andchildren, yet recovering for man the cowhe has lost (H 25).

The Swiss long mistrusted the trees,believing they contained tricky spirits.

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The inhabitants of India and easternRussia regard the tree spirits as beingcruel.

The Patagonian, who has no notion of aspirit of vegetation, worships the treealone.

The Patagonians still worship trees,

The more advanced Mexican recognizesthe same spirit which was worshipped bythe Egyptians and Semites, thevegetation-spirit, as a great power ofnature, probably the Mother (H 25-26).

as did the early Semites.

Long after the Hebrews ceased treeworship,

[“And the children of Israel did evil in thesight of the Lord, and forgat the Lord their God,and served Baalim and the groves” (Judg. 3:7).] they continued to venerate their various

deities in the groves.

The cult of trees, however, is notuniversal. China is without it even in theattenuated form of cultivating deitiesliving beside trees. It has only theborrowed myth of the tree of life (H 26).

Except in China, there once existed auniversal cult of the tree of life.

The “talking (oracular) tree” of Grecianand Persian myth is reflected in the treeof soothsayers (Judges 9:37; see therevised version); we may compare thedivining rod, virgula divina (H 26). 85:2.5 The belief that water or precious

metals beneath the earth’s surface can bedetected by a wooden divining rod is arelic of the ancient tree cults.

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Survivals of the religious importanceof trees are mainly confined in Europe topetty or pretty superstitions in regard tothe use of amulets, the May-tree, etc.Rapping on wood three times impliestaking protection in the Cross withinvocation of the Trinity. The Christmastree first symbolized the secondblossoming of trees in mild wintersbetween the days of St. Martin (ourIndian summer) and St. Andrew,November 11 to 30 (H 28-29).

The Maypole, the Christmas tree, and thesuperstitious practice of rapping on woodperpetuate certain of the ancient customsof tree worship and the later-day treecults.

Many of the beliefs of this early stagelinger late into modern times (H 23).

85:2.6 Many of these earliest forms ofnature veneration became blended withthe later evolving techniques of worship,

but the earliest mind-adjutant-activatedtypes of worship were functioning longbefore the newly awakening religiousnature of mankind became fullyresponsive to the stimulus of spiritualinfluences.

3. THE WORSHIP OFANIMALS

III: THE WORSHIP OF ANIMALS(Hopkins 32)

[contd] Between man and beast thereis, to a savage, only a linguisticdifference; in other respects the beast isman’s “younger brother,” as the Hinducalls him, ... because he recognizes in theanimal a being akin to himself, having thesame feelings, desires, and needs, butgifted with other speech and other occultpowers ... (H 32).

85:3.1 Primitive man had a peculiarand fellow feeling for the higher animals.

His ancestors had lived with them

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The first nature-fakir too is the savage,who publishes accounts of animalintelligence, of beasts consorting withmen, of animals as progenitors andcreators, of sapient serpents, and of frog-maidens marrying humans. and even mated with them.

In southern Asia it was early believed that

The soul of a man when he is alive andwhen he is dead is liable to pass into thebody of an animal, and a god in the sameway may inhabit a beast (H 32).

the souls of men came back to earth inanimal form.

This belief was a survival of the stillearlier practice of worshiping animals.

Animals are worshipped as great livingpowers and as ghosts, just as men areworshipped, while in addition there issomething more mysterious in an animal,powers of strength and cunning to whichmen cannot attain (H 32).

85:3.2 Early men revered the animalsfor their power and their cunning.

They thought the keen scent and thefarseeing eyes of certain creaturesbetokened spirit guidance.

[See H 32-33.] The animals have all been worshiped byone race or another at one time oranother.

Among such objects of worship were

Of beast and bird form are thehuman-faced gods of beastly shape andhuman-shaped gods of beastly face,

creatures that were regarded as halfhuman and half animal,

centaurs, Assyrian lions, the pantheon ofEgypt, Babylonian demons of similarcharacter, the Holy Turtle and Grand-father Snake of the Amerinds, etc. (H 34-35).

such as centaurs and mermaids.

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The Hebrews worshipped serpents downto the days of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:4) (H37).

85:3.3 The Hebrews worshiped ser-pents down to the days of King Hezekiah,

The Hindu today gives his house-snake itsdaily meal of milk, believing it may be hisancestor in new form (H 37).

and the Hindus still maintain friendlyrelations with their house snakes.

Chinese dragon-worship is a survival ofserpent-worship.

The Chinese worship of the dragon is asurvival of the snake cults.

The wisdom of the snake makes it theprotecting genius of the physician inGreece and the pre-Apollo oracle, as it isa prophetic genius elsewhere (H 37).

The wisdom of the serpent was a symbolof Greek medicine

and is still employed as an emblem bymodern physicians.

The art of snake charming has beenhanded down from the days of the femaleshamans of

There is an extravagance in Indiacalled “snake-love,” which has beengiven a mystic religious interpretationstill more extravagant. But the matter isperfectly simple.

the snake love cult,

A snake-charmer must endure the bite ofa poisonous snake. He does not extractthe poison but accustoms himself to it bytaking larger doses from time to time tillthe bite ceases to affect him.

who, as the result of daily snake bites,became immune,

He even learns to depend on his daily“dope” like an opium or hashish victimand his love for the poison explains“snake-love” (H 38).

in fact, became genuine venom addictsand could not get along without thispoison.

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85:3.4 The worship of insects and otheranimals

Insects and vermin [in India] derive attimes a respect rather than worship frombeing imagined as reëmbodied souls ofhuman beings. But in Buddhistic and Jaincircles, what prevents a man from killingvermin is only his interpretation of therule “do as you would be done by,” notthe fear of killing his relatives (H 39).

was promoted by a later misinterpretationof the golden rule—doing to others (everyform of life) as you would be done by.

There is another kind of symbolismwhich is a real factor in religion. As inArabia clouds are “camels,” so in Indiathey are the “red cows” of dawn; the sunis a red horse, also an eagle, the “swiftbird” of the sky, as the Zulus call thelightning, which in India is a snake; whilein India and America wind is a bird orcaused by a bird’s wings (H 41).

The ancients once believed that all windswere produced by the wings of birds

[?] and therefore both feared and worshipedall winged creatures.

Eclipse to the ancient Germans was awolf devouring sun and moon; in India,the original “seizer” (eclipse-demon) hastoday become the evil soul of a dead manwhose chariot is drawn by eight steeds....In all these cases a fancied resemblanceassociates god and symbol (H 41-42).

The early Nordics thought that eclipseswere caused by a wolf that devoured aportion of the sun or moon.

Almost every god in India has an animalrepresentative which typifies him more orless clearly.... So when Brahman rides aswan it is unnecessary to imagine thatBrahman was originally a bird-totem, orthat, because Vishnu has a horse’s head,he was at first a horse, rather than that hishorse-form reflects his sun-horsecharacter ... (H 42).

The Hindus often show Vishnu with ahorse’s head.

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There was a time when symbolism ranmad and much nonsense was said indefense thereof. Now the tide has turnedand scholars hesitate to see symbolismanywhere. Every symbol is the relic of alost cult or god. But really there is such athing as religious symbolism and we donot have to wait for the sick fancy ofcivilization to find it (H 44-45).

Many times an animal symbol stands fora forgotten god or a vanished cult.

The lamb was the sacrificial animal,but as applied to Christ it merelysymbolized him as the sacrifice.

Early in evolutionary religion the lambbecame the typical sacrificial animal

So the dove of peace became a meresymbol of peace and love, thoughoriginally a goddess of maternity (H 45).

and the dove the symbol of peace andlove.

In religion, symbolism is a help and ahindrance.

85:3.5 In religion, symbolism may beeither good or bad

It provides a sign for an idea and is usefulin recalling the idea. But when, instead ofrecalling, it replaces the idea, it becomesa menace (H 45).

just to the extent that the symbol does ordoes not displace the original worshipfulidea.

And symbolism must not be confusedwith direct idolatry wherein the materialobject is directly and actually worshiped.

4. WORSHIP OF THEELEMENTS

IV: THE WORSHIP OF ELEMENTSAND HEAVENLY PHENOMENA(Hopkins 47)

85:4.1 Mankind has worshiped earth,air, water, and fire.

Water is worshipped in springs andstreams by the savages of Africa The primitive races venerated springs and

worshiped rivers.

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and a river-cult is known to theMongolians (H 47). Even now in Mongolia there flourishes an

influential river cult.

Baptism was practiced in Babylon. Baptism became a religious ceremonial inBabylon,

Religious use of water is prominent in thecult of the Amerinds. The Creeks bathedannually, after purging and fasting, to“wash out the sins of the year” (H 47).

and the Greeks practiced the annual ritualbath.

Now, ... advanced savage types, likethe Mongolians, imagine that the streamhas a spirit in it, and this interpretation isof course common in the modern fancy ofmaids in springs, nymphs, mermaids, andthe sea-god ... (H 48).

It was easy for the ancients to imaginethat the spirits dwelt in the bubblingsprings,

gushing fountains, flowing rivers, andraging torrents.

[See H 90.] Moving waters vividly impressed thesesimple minds with beliefs of spiritanimation and supernatural power.

If a man is drowning, to help him wouldbe to affront the river; wise men let himdrown to avoid a similar fate. Thisattitude is found both in cases where theriver is an intelligent being and wherethere is a river-spirit (H 49).

Sometimes a drowning man would berefused succor for fear of offending someriver god.

[See five rows down.]85:4.2 Many things and numerous

events have functioned as religiousstimuli to different peoples in differentages.

Among the Hill Tribes of India are foundthe personification and worship ofRainbow, who to Homer is a divinemessenger but to classical Hindumythology is Indra’s bow (it is a god’sbow to the Polynesians also) or a swing(H 51).

A rainbow is yet worshiped by many ofthe hill tribes of India.

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But in modern India and in Africa(Dahomey), the rainbow is a celestialsnake, which has led to the suggestionthat treasure found at the foot of therainbow may be a serpent’s hoard (H 51).

In both India and Africa the rainbow isthought to be a gigantic celestial snake;

[[The Lord said:] I do set my bow in thecloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenantbetween me and the earth (Gen. 9:13).]

Hebrews and Christians regard it as “thebow of promise.”

VIII: RELIGIOUS STIMULI (Hopkins88)

[“It was natural enough that the winds should bedivided into demons beneficent and maleficent, asit depends where you live whether a wind from aparticular quarter will do you good or ill” (Sumner& Keller IV 424).]

Likewise, influences regarded asbeneficent in one part of the world maybe looked upon as malignant in otherregions.

[T]he reason why East-Wind was a god inSouth America

The east wind is a god in South America,for it brings rain;

and is today a devil in India in India it is a devil

is that this wind regularly brought long-desired rain to the American coast and asregularly in Central India brings aparching dust, which shows demoniacmaliciousness (H 88).

because it brings dust and causes drought.

XXVII: DAIMONISM (Sumner & Keller951)

§241.* Types of Daimon. (Sumner & Keller953)

The mediæval Arabs associate a definiteclass of daimons with sand-whirls andapply the same term indifferently to themand to the jinn that accompany or causethem (S&K 957).

The ancient Bedouins believed that anature spirit produced the sand whirls,

and even in the times of Moses belief innature spirits was strong enough to insuretheir perpetuation in Hebrew theology as

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There is no uniform [biblical] conceptionof angels, whose number is legion: someare angels over natural phenomena, aswinds, fire, and waters; they form God’scourt, his ministers and reporters of whatgoes on on earth (S&K IV 425).

angels of fire, water, and air.


We have already seen how savagestreat rain and hail, which have beendiscussed too logically as forms of water(H 52).

85:4.3 Clouds, rain, and hail have allbeen feared and worshiped by numerousprimitive tribes and by many of the earlynature cults.

Water and air (wind) go together inthe worship of storm-winds (H 49). Windstorms with thunder and lightning

overawed early man.

He was so impressed with these elementaldisturbances that

Thunder is always taken as the voice of agod who is the storm (“Who doubtethIndra when he hears him thunder?”) (H49).

thunder was regarded as the voice of anangry god.

[S]un and fire are recognized as one evenby savages, while lightning soonbecomes, as in ancient India, a third inthis early triad (H 49).

The worship of fire and the fear oflightning were linked together

and were widespread among many earlygroups.

Magic has much to do with fire, but likewater, fire is purificatory and remains inreligion as well as in magic (H 50).

85:4.4 Fire was mixed up with magic inthe minds of primitive fear-riddenmortals.

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XVI: MAN’S ORIGIN AND PAST(Barnes 525)

§427. The relation between magic andprimitive religion. (Barnes 547)

The magic is believed: why? Oftenenough it must fail. But it is a curiouscharacteristic of the human mind that onepositive, or supposedly positive fact, isremembered

A devotee of magic will vividlyremember one positive chance result inthe practice of his magic formulas,

as against a score of negative disappoint-ments (B 548).

while he nonchalantly forgets a score ofnegative results, out-and-out failures.


Fire-worship, which reached itshighest point in ancient Persia ... (H 49).

Fire reverence reached its height inPersia,

where it long persisted.

Fire is an excellent example of aphenomenon worshipped per se withoutimplication of a spirit in it. Even thecivilized Vedic Aryans regard the actualleaping fire as a living thing swallowingoblations, while acting also as messengerto the heavenly gods (H 50).

Some tribes worshiped fire as a deityitself;

[See 95:6.4 and 141:6.1.] others revered it as the flaming symbol ofthe purifying and purging spirit of theirvenerated deities.

In at least three ancient communities wereinstituted vestal virgins whose primarycare was to tend the fire. Formal vestalswere known to Romans, Peruvians, andKelts; but also among the Damaras, atribe so low as to be unable to countabove three, the chief’s daughters are setto watch the sacred fire, to which, as torain, they offer sacrifice (H 50).

Vestal virgins were charged with the dutyof watching sacred fires,

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and in the twentieth century candles stillburn as a part of the ritual of manyreligious services.

5. WORSHIP OF THEHEAVENLY BODIES

85:5.1 The worship of rocks, hills,trees, and animals naturally developed upthrough fearful veneration of the elementsto the deification of the sun, moon, andstars.

In India, the peasants generally believethat stars are the souls of people,

In India and elsewhere the stars wereregarded as the glorified souls of greatmen who had departed from the life in theflesh.

though in ancient times they serve also assoul-worlds, that is, each soul receives astar as its home; but the prevailing beliefeven then was that stars are souls, andgroups of stars are beasts (H 54).

The “Chaldeans” and their star-cult arenot important historically till the eighthcentury, B.C., and in Babylon divinationby the liver came before that by the stars(H 54).

The Chaldean star cultists

considered themselves to be the childrenof

When a savage begins to imagine his pasthistory he is usually logical enough toderive his tribe from some substance orcreature that by evolution or propagationeventually produced the thinker andspeculator. Sometimes he speculates evenon the origin of the world and gets farenough to imagine a sky and earth pair,later refined into Sky Father and EarthMother, but such beings in so far as theydo not affect him are negligible (H 53).

the sky father and the earth mother.

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Moon-worship is a trait of Africanreligion and is well known in the oldestreligious literature of Egypt, Babylon, andIndia. In some cases it is probably olderthan sun-worship

85:5.2 Moon worship preceded sunworship.

for it belongs more to the hunting stagethan to the agricultural, though themoon’s influence on plant-life is alsorecognized (H 55).

Veneration of the moon was at its heightduring the hunting era,

while sun worship became the chiefreligious ceremony of the subsequentagricultural ages.

V: THE WORSHIP OF THE SUN(Hopkins 58)

In India, on the other hand, the sun wasworshipped from the earliest period underone form or another

Solar worship first took extensive root inIndia,

and as late as the tenth century of our erathere were six flourishing sects of sun-worshippers, though the native cult hadbeen developed partly under Persianinfluence.

and there it persisted the longest.

In Persia itself, the cult of the suneventually gave rise to that mysticreligion known as Mithraism, which atone time threatened the success ofChristianity (H 58-59).

In Persia sun veneration gave rise to thelater Mithraic cult.

The sun is distinctly a royal god andbesides his power as fertilizer andsustainer he receives added glory aspatron or ancestor of the king. So inEgypt the king is identified with Ra, inBabylon the king represents Shamash,and in Rome the emperor becomes anincorporation of Sol invictus.

Among many peoples the sun wasregarded as the ancestor of their kings.

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In the Chaldean system the sun occupiedthe central position among the sevencircles of the universe; the other planetsrevolved about it; it was the King Sun,the heart of the world, the ruler ofelements and seasons, the regulator of thestars, the chief divinity in nature, henceintelligent, not as a spirit in the sun but asbeing itself the mens mundi.

The Chaldeans put the sun in the centerof “the seven circles of the universe.”

Philosophy finally separated the sun fromreason and Christianity in the fourthcentury turned the day of the new sun intothe birthday of Christ, while Sunday, asfirst day, still represents the importancegiven to the sun in the astrological week(H 60).

Later civilizations honored the sun bygiving its name to the first day of theweek.

When this sun-god [in the Mahâ-bhârata] desires to have human progenyhe mystically touches the pure daughterof royal race chosen for this honor andshe conceives in purity unblemished, sothat she still remains a virgin, and bears ason.

85:5.3 The sun god was supposed to bethe mystic father of the virgin-born sons

of destiny who ever and anon werethought to be bestowed as saviors uponfavored races.

But the babe is put into a box and floatsaway upon the river till in good time he isrescued by a deserving man

These supernatural infants were alwaysput adrift upon some sacred river to berescued in an extraordinary manner,

and grows up a demi-god yet earthly hero(H 64-65).

after which they would grow up tobecome miraculous personalities and thedeliverers of their peoples.

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6. WORSHIP OF MAN

VI: THE WORSHIP OF MAN (Hopkins67)

85:6.1 Having worshiped everythingelse on the face of the earth and in theheavens above, man has not hesitated tohonor himself with such adoration.

[A savage] makes no very clear categoriesof beast, man, and god and inconsequence his worship of one is that ofthe others; it is not worship in the senseof implied recognition of unhumandivinity, but rather the profound respectsuitable in the presence of a spiritualpower vastly superior to that of theworshipper, yet equally appropriate tobeast, man, and god (H 67).

The simple-minded savage makes noclear distinction between beasts, men, andgods.

85:6.2 Early man regarded all unusualpersons as superhuman, and he so fearedsuch beings as to hold them in reverentialawe; to some degree he literallyworshiped them.

In some savage tribes, twins, extra-ordinary and mysterious, are regarded asunlucky, in some as lucky, and they areeither exposed to die or receive unusualhonor in consequence, an observanceapproaching worship, but not identical.

Even having twins was regarded as beingeither very lucky or very unlucky.

But albinos and poets and crazy people,being still more remarkable, are apt to berevered as quite unhuman, quasi divinebeings, spiritually as well as physicallysuperhuman.

Lunatics, epileptics, and the feeble-minded were often worshiped by theirnormal-minded fellows,

who believed that such abnormal beingswere indwelt by the gods.

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Especially priests, being in touch with thespiritual world, and kings, having super-human power, are objects of a respectfulregard that is not differentiated from thatpaid to gods; they are really worshipped(H 67-68).

Priests, kings, and prophets wereworshiped;

the holy men of old were looked upon asinspired by the deities.

85:6.3 Tribal chiefs died and weredeified. Later, distinguished souls passedon and were sainted.

[The early gods were simply glorified

departed humans (87:3.1).]

Unaided evolution never originated godshigher than the glorified, exalted, andevolved spirits of deceased humans.

In early evolution religion creates its owngods. In the course of revelation the Godsformulate religion.

[In evolutionary religion, the gods are

conceived to exist in the likeness of man’s

image;

Evolutionary religion creates its gods inthe image and likeness of mortal man;

in revelatory religion, men are taught that

they are God’s sons—even fashioned in the

finite image of divinity ... (92:5.1).]

revelatory religion seeks to evolve andtransform mortal man into the image andlikeness of God.

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XXVII: DAIMONISM (Sumner & Keller931)

§241.* Types of Daimon. (Sumner & Keller953)

[contd] Not all daimons are ghost-derived, at least in the opinions of theirworshippers.... [In the New Hebrides] aredistinguished spirits of two kinds: thoseof the deceased and those of unknownorigin, and in West Africa there appearnature-gods which are the animatingprinciples or indwelling spirits of naturalfeatures and objects and whose cult existsside by side with that of the ghost-gods, 85:6.4 The ghost gods, who are of

supposed human origin, should bedistinguished from the nature gods,

for nature worship did evolve apantheon—nature spirits elevated to theposition of gods.

The nature cults continued to developalong with the later appearing ghost cults,and each exerted an influence upon theother.

Many religious systems embraced a dualconcept of deity, nature gods and ghostgods;

so that “it is often difficult to decidewhere the one worship begins and theother ends” (S&K 953-54).

in some theologies these concepts areconfusingly intertwined,

[Thor, the victorious commander of the armies

of the north in the final battle of the Somme,

became the hero of the northern white tribes

and later on was revered as a god by some of

them (80:5.4).]

as is illustrated by Thor, a ghost hero whowas also master of the lightning.

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VI: THE WORSHIP OF MAN (Hopkins67)

85:6.5 But the worship of man by manreached its height when

[contd from 85:6.2] The Roman emperor,called divine, was only the successor of aseries of kings and priests who were godsto their Eastern subjects, as after his daylived the king-gods of Mexico and Peruand even today the masses of Indiarecognize the emperor of India as adivinity (H 68).

temporal rulers commanded suchveneration from their subjects

and, in substantiation of such demands,claimed to

In Egypt the king was identified with thesun-god or was the son of the sun. [Etc.](H 68)

have descended from deity.

7. THE ADJUTANTS OFWORSHIP AND WISDOM

85:7.1 Nature worship may seem tohave arisen naturally and spontaneouslyin the minds of primitive men andwomen, and so it did; but there wasoperating all this time in these sameprimitive minds the sixth adjutant spirit,which had been bestowed upon thesepeoples as a directing influence of thisphase of human evolution. And this spiritwas constantly stimulating the worshipurge of the human species, no matter howprimitive its first manifestations might be.The spirit of worship gave definite originto the human impulse to worship,notwithstanding that animal fear moti-vated the expression of worshipfulness,and that its early practice becamecentered upon objects of nature.

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85:7.2 You must remember thatfeeling, not thinking, was the guiding andcontrolling influence in all evolutionarydevelopment.

To the primitive mind there is littledifference between

All extraordinary creatures aremysterious, and what is mysterious is tobe feared, and what is feared is eithershunned or honored, worshipped (H 67).

fearing, shunning, honoring, andworshiping.

85:7.3 When the worship urge isadmonished and directed by wisdom—meditative and experiential thinking—itthen begins to develop into the pheno-menon of real religion.

[Compare: It is only when imagination and logichave worked for ages in conjunction with an everdeveloping moral sense that man arrives at thesupreme imagination of a moral creator andgovernor of the universe usurping the functions ofprevious deities (H 92).]

When the seventh adjutant spirit, thespirit of wisdom, achieves effectiveministration, then in worship man beginsto turn away from nature and naturalobjects to the God of nature and to theeternal Creator of all things natural.

85:7.4 [Presented by a BrilliantEvening Star of Nebadon.]

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1. This situation is not paralleled in the animal world; it is with the entrance of the human mind, with its outfit ofillusions—about ghosts, magic, the evil eye, the supernatural in general—into the field that “the errorless course ofnature” is replaced by one in which errors multiply on errors (Sumner & Keller 766-67).

2. If the reader can be convinced that health and disease are not matters of chance; that they are regulated bythe universal laws of sowing and reaping; that health once lost is ordinarily regained only by faithful cultivation; thatdisease is due neither to the anger of the gods nor to a mysterious dispensation of Providence; that sickness is aconsequence, directly or indirectly, of a violation of Nature’s laws: if these fundamental principles of health anddisease are made plainer to the reader, and if the pathway to health can be more clearly opened up, then this bookwill have accomplished its mission and fulfilled the design of its author (William S. Sadler, M.D., The Science ofLiving, or The Art of Keeping Well [1910], p. viii).

Modern medical research concerning the cause of disease has resulted in the production of such a vast arrayof scientific evidence respecting the specific character of various diseases, as almost to destroy the old superstitionwhich taught that human affliction resulted from the distemper of the gods, the juxtaposition of the stars, the phasesof the moon, or some “mysterious dispensation of Providence” (William S. Sadler, M.D., The Essentials of HealthfulLiving [1925], p. 31-32).

3. Categories, such as those of Saussaye, who divides religious objects of worship into heavenly and earthly, or thoseof Max Müller, whose divisions are objects “seizable, half-seizable, and non-seizable,”as illustrated by a stone, ahill, and a star, are not useful and may be worse than useless in suggesting a false chronological series, for some ofthe lowest savages worship stars and half-civilized men today worship stones. There is no ascending scale followedby all men. But for convenience we shall have to examine these objects in order and we may as well begin with theworship of stones and hills, things apparently most lifeless (H 13).

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